Jason Clemens, director of research at the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute and an adjunct scholar with the Mackinac Center, writes in an Op-Ed in Canada’s Financial Post that “heightened uncertainty imposed on the U.S. economy by Washington is a killer for investment …”
INDIANAPOLIS — Mackinac Center Senior Investigative Analyst Anne Schieber reports that the Indiana House passed House Bill 1001 today by a 54-44 margin. The legislation would make it illegal to force a worker to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment.
This week is National School Choice Week and to celebrate, LearnLiberty.org has released a video exploring the benefits of giving students and parents more options. Dr. Angela Dills, of Providence College, gives four research-based reasons why school choice should be expanded.
Mackinac Center President Emeritus Lawrence W. Reed is the subject of an in-depth interview at The Daily Bell, the online journal of The Foundation for the Advancement of Free-Market Thinking.
Reed in the interview discusses what drew him to the freedom movement, his time with the The Mackinac Center and the goals he hopes to accomplish as president of the Foundation for Economic Education.
According to The Detroit News, former Gov. Jennifer Granholm made a deal with a group of wealthy and politically connected individuals in Oakland County to use state pension funds to guarantee $18 million they borrowed to set up a film studio in Pontiac, essentially making the pension fund the “co-signer” on the loan.
Late last night on a 5-4 vote, Bay City commissioners chose to repeal that city’s prevailing wage ordinance, something no city in Michigan may have ever done, to our knowledge. A prevailing wage law mandates union scale wages on government funded construction projects, regardless of who wins the bid.
This week marks National School Choice Week, a grassroots effort to spread the message about the importance of educational freedom. More than 260 organizations around the country have signed on, and these groups are working with local partners to host about 400 events, including several in Michigan. The week officially kicked off yesterday with a huge event in New Orleans.
Mackinac Center experts were featured in two of the state's largest newspapers Sunday with Op-Eds on two crucial policy issues at the forefront of today's debate.
Michael D. LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, wrote in the Detroit Free Press about why Michigan should pass a right-to-work law in order to remain competitive.
A Christian Science Monitor story today about how the right-to-work issue is playing out on a national scale cites this recent commentary, “What a Right-to-Work Law Will Mean for Indiana,” by Labor Policy Director Paul Kersey.
Senior Economist David Littmann was the keynote speaker at the Troy Chamber of Commerce’s annual breakfast Thursday, according to the Troy Patch.
“We’ve at least bottomed out and have a chance to be on a growth path,” Littmann said in his economic forecast. “We still have an economy that’s super vulnerable to internal and external shocks, and it’s true that a national election year like 2012 traditionally witnesses literally maniacal efforts at fiscal and monetary policy stimulation.”
This legislative week was dominated by the Governor's State of the State address, with mostly pro-forma sessions surrounding it. A few comparatively minor bills were passed on Thursday.
Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting
Senate Bill 778, Restrict ad hoc road-end “marinas”: Passed 30 to 6 in the Senate
To establish that unless a deed, easement, or other recorded dedication expressly provides for it, a waterfront road end may not be used for boat hoists or docks; for mooring between midnight and sunrise; or for any activity that obstructs access to a lake or stream. Local governments could ban or regulate uses that are not specified in property owners’ deeds, easements, etc.
The AFL-CIO is starting a new public relations campaign and the first ad is, well, interesting. The theme is work as a common experience and as a form of giving to the community. As a statement of the dignity of working men and women, it's not bad. If you can overlook the source it's even moving. That's easier than you would think for an ad put out by the AFL-CIO, because it doesn't say anything about unions. Hardly even hints at them. Which is odd.
A Pontiac movie studio hoping to cash in on Michigan’s film subsidy program will fail to make its February bond payment, according to the Detroit Free Press. The Michigan State Employees Retirement System, which guaranteed the $18 million worth of bonds, will have to make the $630,000 payment.
Cities and school districts where emergency managers have been appointed brought that situation upon themselves, a Mackinac Center analyst told WEYI-TV25 in Saginaw.
Michael LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, said “The painful truth is cities with emergency managers today would not have them if they had not fouled their own financial nests.”
Michael LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, is cited in a story today at Bloomberg Businessweek about the long-term, nationwide failure of corporate welfare incentives. LaFaive said such programs have been around since the mid-1930s, when Mississippi created a program called “Balance Agriculture with Industry.”
Mackinac Center President Joseph G. Lehman is cited in a column previewing tonight’s State of the State address at The Michigan View.
Lehman called Gov. Rick Snyder’s first term in office the “best year for reform since Gov. Engler’s first term.”
The column, by Henry Payne of The Detroit News, draws a comparison between Gov. Snyder and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, noting that the former praised the latter as a role model when introducing him at “An Evening with the Mackinac Center” in Lansing last November.
A letter to the editor in The Muskegon Chronicle about taverns losing business due to the workplace smoking ban contains an editor’s note that cites a November 2011 Capitol Confidential story outlining drops in sales that liquor license holders reported to the Michigan Liquor Control Commission in the wake of the ban.
Interesting item in Monday's Midland Daily News: faculty members at Central Michigan University want to know what the totals were after a vote to ratify a new contract, but the union isn't saying.
Negotiations had been contentious, with the university taking a firm line in negotiations and staff at CMU briefly going on strike. The Central Michigan University Faculty Association announced that a contract had been agreed to and ratified last week. The union announced that three-quarters of its membership had voted in the election, but is refusing to release the actual vote totals.
Michael LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, was asked by The Grand Rapids Press to comment on what he hopes Gov. Rick Snyder will address in his State of the State address Wednesday night.
“We need to make changes to the personal property tax, which is essentially a tax on tools,” LaFaive said. “In a manufacturing state, I can’t believe we do that.”
If Indiana passes right-to-work legislation as expected, it could force Michigan legislators to do the same, a Mackinac Center analyst told The Detroit News.
“In the past year, there has been a surge of grass-roots activity promoting (right-to-work) here,” Michael LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, said. “Watching Indiana drain off Michigan manufacturers may finally force the politicians’ hands.”
The Legislature began the 2012 session in a pro-forma assembly on Wednesday during which no votes were taken, so this report instead contains several newly introduced bills of interest.
Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting
Senate Bill 775: Revise allowable deer hunting guns south of “rifle line”
Introduced by Sen. Michael Green (R), to revise the types of firearms allowed for deer hunting south of the “rifle line” in the Lower Peninsula. In addition to shotguns and muzzle-loading rifles, hunters could use a .35 caliber or larger pistol capable of holding no more than nine rounds, and a .35 caliber or larger rifle loaded with straight-walled cartridges and a maximum case length of 1.80 inches (in other words, not a high-power rifle cartridge). Referred to committee, no further action at this time.
To most people, eliminating artificial caps on the number of Michigan students allowed to benefit from online public charter schools seems like a no-brainer. Indeed, many people I talk to are surprised to learn such caps exist, and puzzled by some politicians in the state House working to stop or water-down a bill eliminating the caps. The legislation has already passed the state Senate.
Suttons Bay School district is small in size — but big on innovation.
This school district in northwest Michigan probably doesn't get much attention outside of Traverse City. That's unfortunate, because it is blazing a trail in education innovation through digital learning.
A Republican state senator plans to introduce a bill that would require the Legislature to keep track of legislators' voting records and make the information public, something the Mackinac Center already does at no expense to taxpayers through MichiganVotes.org's annual "Missed Votes Report."
Questionable spending by government is practically the rule rather than the exception, but some examples can make even jaded, long-time observers scratch their heads in wonder.
Here’s one: The Michigan Department of Natural Resources gives grants to many local governments for public recreation projects and programs. Last year more than $550,000 was expended by the state for this purpose, with the money coming from the voluntary $10 state park passes purchased when drivers renew their annual vehicle registration. All that is fair enough, but here’s where it gets weird: From this pot of money, the DNR also spent more than $1,000 last year to buy those giant “trophy” checks that politicians and bureaucrats love to give away in photo-ops staged for the media.
